"A blog is to a writer what a canvas is to an artist." ~ Colleen Redman

1. A rattle under my car turned out to be a heat fan loose on my catalytic converter, which I like to call a “Cadillac converter.”
2. I like to call the spots and blemishes that appear on skin of a certain age barnacles because they remind me of the way barnacles grow on old whales.
3. Summer is getting old.
4. Maybe age is a clock to wake us from dreaming … Or maybe it is the dream … Like counting the number of pages in a book … when we should be reading the story … ~ The rest of the poem I wrote about turning 50 is HERE.
5. The spots and streaked trails on my bathroom mirror from a botched cleaning job, remind me of the meteorites I recently saw in the night sky during the Perseid meteor shower, watched from a lounge chair in the middle of my yard at 1 a.m.
6. We put stars in poems … like we sprinkle salt on summer corn … but in the winter eat it out cans … We punch holes in black paper … hold it up to the light … We turn thermostats on … to make imaginary fire … ~ The rest of the poem is HERE.
7. Don’t try THIS at home.
8. Last week I dreamt that Hillary Clinton was on stage at a speaking engagement and she got out of her chair and laid down on the floor to take a nap. I was worried and wondered where her handlers were.
9. Sundowners syndrome is when elderly patients in hospitals get their days and nights mixed up and become disorientated and irritable, usually in the afternoon. Sometimes when I stay home alone for too long, like I recently did when Joe was doing a weeklong Teen Meditation retreat, I get a touch of sundowners when I wake from a nap and think its morning or wake up in the morning thinking I just napped.
10. At this point, all that stands in the way of universal health care in America are the greed of the medical-industrial complex, the lies of the right-wing propaganda machine, and the gullibility of voters who believe those lies. The rest of Paul Krugman’s New York Times commentary on health care reform is HERE.
11.We put stars in poems because they glow in the dark but aren’t made of plastic … because it’s better than putting poems in stars … because it makes our grandchildren giggle to see them … because we don’t know how to live without them … The rest of the poem is HERE.
12. All the stars in the night sky are HERE.
13. And the star of kaleidoscope games is HERE.
More Thirteen Thursday players HERE.

That Kaleidoscope game is incredible! How beautiful.
My youngest & I spent a few hours watching the Perseids too. I read that the showers in mid-November this year, at their peak are expected to have as much as 500 meteors per hour, I’m hoping it’s a warm November!

I had a tie rod replaced the month before. That was a BIG rattle and a big bill.
We had a lot of cloud cover on most nights too during the showers. One night I had a decent sky and saw about five big meteorites in about 20 minutes (before I got too tired to wait).

Hmmm … methinks I’m still waiting for summer to arrive. As for greed, it does seem rampant doesn’t it! How real health care reform could be in question with the overwhelming Democratic majority and ‘mandate’ of Obama’s Presidency is beyond me … especially considering how Bush and Cheney managed to push a war nobody (but defense contractors wanted) on America with such ease. What’s wrong with this picture?
Hugs and blessings,

LOVE that Kaliedoscope Thingy..It’s fun, too, if you use the tiniest brush size and do it rather fast….!
Where do you find ALL of these interesting “visuals” Colleen?
I left a rather lengthy comment on your Poem about turning 50…LOVED IT!

I love the stars. My dad, who was a coal miner and worked the hoot owl shift – he also loved the stars. I think they kept him company in the cold, dark nights, driving home at 4 in the morning, in those steep, desolate mountains. You know the ones I’m talking about. Being a mountain girl inherently means you will love the stars.

Re: #10: ““Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever does.” – Margaret Mead. We could certainly argue over whether the “medical-industrial complex” constitutes a “small group of thoughtful, committed citizens” but Mead’s observation certainly fits, doesn’t it? Who pays Rush Limbaugh’s salary? Not those in favor of health care reform, that is certain.

About

From the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia I write to synthesize what I'm learning at the time, whether it be poetry, a political commentary, or a letter to my family in Hull, Massachusetts, where I'm originally from. Whenever I don't know exactly what it is I'm doing and it borders on wasting my time, I call it research. 'Dear Abby, How can I get rid of freckles?' was my first published piece at the age of 11.